Officials from the Mummers left the Mummers Museum last night after agreeing to sign a contract with the city to stage this year’s parade. New Year’s parade time cut in accordance with $300K budget. (Photo: Rikard Larma/Metro)

Our annual Mummers Parade is a go this year. Which is great – because how idiotic would we look if we axed the Mummers Parade? Ever hear of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade getting shut down..or the boring ass Rose Parade?

It’s going to be a shortened parade this year, though.

Which makes me wonder: I thought the city itself made in excess of $20 million from the World Series.

Where did the $20 million go?

Budget crisis my ass. Maybe if Mayor Michael “The Honeymoon Is Over” Nutter wasn’t lazy, he’d actually go through the budget and find all the money the City is wasting on stupid stuff. Or he could take the “bail me out, please” route and just go beg Obama for the money. Yes he can.

Since the year 2000, the Philly Boys, a group of balls-out guys with hearts, have headed to Boston for the Santa Speedo Run, a charitable and hilarious 1.25-mile jog through freezing Boston. Every year, they raise money for a different charity, and this year it is the Cradles to Crayons Foundation, an organization that collects winter essentials for disadvantaged tykes. They really need some support, as a speedo isn’t enough! (I know, that was terrible.)

Our Philadelphia “boys” run on December 13. Please consider giving to this wonderful cause today by clicking on the “Philly Boys” link, above. Thanks!

I saw a story the other day on Channel 10 or Channel 6 or some other news program that isn’t anchored by Hot Dawn. The story was about how much of a “hard time” comedians are having making jokes about President-Elect Obama.

I’ve watched late night television a lot less since the election because it’s a little irritating that it’s been pretty much a month since the election and there are still jokes being made about Sarah Palin and how old McCain is. I think it was Fox News who said the ratio was 7:1, Republican to Democrat, when it came to jokes on late night shows and SNL. I know about sore losers…but it seems like there’s a lot of sore winners out there, too.

Anyhow, the way this “news” story made it seem (and the way late night TV makes it seem, at least, to me) – political comedians and late night hosts are going to be “out of jobs” because Obama is just so popular and likeable (yes, the 59,417,826 – including myself – who didn’t vote for the guy just don’t seem to count!). “We’re so lucky there’s Joe Biden!” snarked Jay Leno in one of his monologues. There will be absolutely no way to make fun of the guy, right?

Are comedians completely out of material? Maybe they’re being cautious? After all – a lot of people have been in some deep water for criticizing Obama – like a radio show almost getting shut down. It’s also so hard to make fun of the guy because it’s easy to be mistaken as a racist by the spastic pointy-finger of the Left.

I decided it was time for some half-assed investigative journalism. I put out an ad for local comedians to reply to and chime in with their thoughts. I received some excellent responses that I’d like to share with all of you.

An elementary school cafeteria worker and playground monitor, who had an extensive career in the adult entertainment industry, is becoming a New Jersey school district’s legal nightmare.

Some parents in Vineland, N.J., as well as the board of education president, want Louisa C. Tuck fired, but district officials were advised by their lawyers and those from the New Jersey School Board Association they have no legal grounds to terminate the 32-year-old from her $5,772-a-year part-time job as an aide in the lunchroom and playground, The Daily Journal reported.

“We have no real legal stance or legal right to do anything for two reasons — one, it’s not illegal, and two, it’s not on school time,” Superintendent Charles Ottinger told the newspaper.

Really? People are angry about this? Now people have to worry that their outside-of-work-and-previous-to-work-non-illegal-activities will catch up with them?!

“Hey, Joe, we heard that you were a huge drug addict when you were a teenager. Even though you’re 35 years old and have got a college degree and cleaned up your life, we’re gonna have to let you go.”

I call shenangians. The one guy who was interviewed on the Fox 29 Ten O’ Clock News last night sounded like he was waiting to pick up his kids at 4:20 and not 3:00, if you catch my drift.

The chick’s obviously trying to better her life – although I’m certain she could make far more money in the previous trade she plied instead of working for any public school.

Man, calm down South Jersey. Yeah, like half the parents who are upset don’t work for “legitimiate” “tow truck” or “concrete” businesses.

My name’s Aaron Proctor. Otherwise/formerly known as “The Noticeable One“, “The Proc“, or “The Most Electrifying Man In Pasadena” and generally known as a damned handsome man. I like long walks on the beach, “Arrested Development“, corporate slang, vodka tonics and house cats that sound like they’re meowing with a “Brrrrrrrowww” instead of Meow. You know what I’m sayin’?

I moved back to the Philly burbs – Delaware County, right in the Chichester area – after living in Los Angeles for the past eight years. You can read about my exploits, triumphs and tribulations in Los Angeles by going here. It’s wiki-accurate.

I grew up in various parts of the Philly area. Was born in Chester. Moved to Mt. Airy to attend the first part of grade school. Moved back to Chester for a short period of time up until around 5th grade and then I finished out my middle and high school experience in the Marcus Hook/Lower Chichester/Upper Chichester area.

Many of you may or may not know about Prop 8, the California ballot proposition that passed in the recent election. Basically, Prop 8 amended that state’s constitution to strictly define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Same-sex marriages will not be valid or recognized by California. In fact, Pennsylvania is another state that also defines marriage as between one man and one woman, and will not recognize anything else.

This Saturday, across the country, protest rallies will be held to repeal Prop 8. The Philadelphia rally will be held at Dilworth Plaza at City Hall, starting at 1:30pm. Join the Impact is hosting the event, and you can share the info or RSVP for the rally through the Facebook group.

On a personal note, I am totally against marriage bans of any sort, and believe it would be a lot easier to completely change the way “marriage” is perceived instead of writing laws allowing or banning one thing or another. I think of marriage as a personal, religious, or spiritual title, that is altogether separate from civil unions. If two people—male, female, or otherwise—want to enter into a legal union, who are we to stop them? It would be unconstitutional.

But then, that’s the beauty of the peaceful protest! If you don’t like the way something is done (or not done) then work to change it!

If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

Sonic, that drive-in wonderland with slushy drinks, big burgers, toasted sandwiches and tater tots, has teased us long enough.

You see, their cheery commercials filled with things that made my tummy cry out in hunger have shown on local stations for so long, but after gloomily reading on their website that the closest location was near Ephrata (before the Morgantown location opened), I gave up. We all did. Should we really drive over 40 miles for a cherry limeade?

No, my friend. Food and Drinq has kindly informed us hungry Philadelphians that Sonic is coming closer to home.

True, there isn’t a proper Philadelphia location opening soon. The new location in Royersford opens today, and stores are set to open in Bensalem and Levittown. Definitely closer than 40 miles.